Human parainfluenza virus type 3 (HPIV3) is a common cause of serious lower respiratory tract infection in infants and children less than one year of age. It is second only to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) as a leading cause of hospitalization for viral lower respiratory tract disease in this age group (Collins et al., in B. N. Fields Virology, p. 1205–1243, 3rd ed., vol. 1., Knipe et al., eds., Lippincott-Raven Publishers, Philadelphia, 1996; Crowe et al., Vaccine 13:415–421, 1995; Marx et al., J. Infect. Dis. 176:1423–1427, 1997, all incorporated herein by reference). Infections by this virus result in substantial morbidity in children less than 3 years of age. HPIV1 and HPIV2 are the principal etiologic agents of laryngotracheobronchitis (croup) and also can cause severe pneumonia and bronchiolitis (Collins et al., 1996, supra). In a long term study over a 20-year period, HPIV1, HPIV2, and HPIV3 were identified as etiologic agents for 6.0, 3.2, and 11.5%, respectively, of hospitalizations for respiratory tract disease accounting in total for 18% of the hospitalizations, and, for this reason, there is a need for an effective vaccine (Murphy et al., Virus Res. 11:1–15, 1988). The parainfluenza viruses have also been identified in a significant proportion of cases of virally-induced middle ear effusions in children with otitis media (Heikkinen et al., N. Engl. J. Med. 340:260–264, 1999, incorporated herein by reference). Thus, there is a need to produce a vaccine against these viruses that can prevent the serious lower respiratory tract disease and the otitis media that accompanies these HPIV infections. HPIV1, HPIV2, and HPIV3 are distinct serotypes that do not elicit significant cross-protective immunity. The major protective antigens of PIVs are the hemeagglutinin (HN) and fusion (F) glycoproteins, which mediate viral attachment, penetration and release. Protection against reinfection is mediated primarily by virus-neutralizing antibodies.
Despite considerable efforts to develop effective vaccine therapies against HPIV, approved vaccine agents that prevent HPIV related illness have not yet been achieved. The most promising prospects to date are live attenuated vaccine viruses since these have been shown to be efficacious in non-human primates even in the presence of passively transferred antibodies, an experimental situation that simulates that present in the very young infant who possesses maternally acquired antibodies (Crowe et al., 1995, supra; and Durbin et al., J. Infect. Dis. 179:1345–1351, 1999a; each incorporated herein by reference). Two live attenuated PIV3 vaccine candidates, a temperature-sensitive (ts) derivative of the wild type PIV3 JS strain (designated PIV3 cp45) and a bovine PIV3 (BPIV3) strain, are undergoing clinical evaluation (Karron et al., Pediatr. Infect. Dis. J. 15:650–654, 1996; Karron et al., 1995a, supra; Karron et al., 1995b, supra; each incorporated herein by reference). The BPIV3 vaccine candidate is attenuated, genetically stable and immunogenic in human infants and children. A second PIV3 vaccine candidate, JS cp45, is a cold-adapted mutant of the JS wildtype (wt) strain of HPIV3 (Karron et al., 1995b, supra; and Belshe et al., J. Med. Virol. 10:235–242, 1982a; each incorporated herein by reference). This live, attenuated, cold-passaged (cp) PIV3 vaccine candidate exhibits temperature-sensitive (ts), cold-adaptation (ca), and attenuation (att) phenotypes, which are stable after viral replication in vivo. The cp45 virus is protective against human PIV3 challenge in experimental animals and is attenuated, genetically stable, and immunogenic in seronegative human infants and children (Belshe et al., 1982a, supra; Belshe et al., Infect. Immun. 37:160–165, 1982b; Clements et al., J. Clin. Microbiol. 29:1175–1182, 1991; Crookshanks et al., J. Med. Virol. 13:243–249, 1984; Hall et al., Virus Res. 22:173–184, 1992; Karron et al., 1995b, supra; each incorporated herein by reference). Because these PIV3 candidate vaccine viruses are biologically derived there is no proven method for adjusting their level of attenuation as will likely be necessary for broad clinical application.
To facilitate development of PIV vaccine candidates, recombinant DNA technology has recently made it possible to recover infectious negative-strand RNA viruses from cDNA (for reviews, see Conzelmann, J. Gen. Virol. 77:381–389, 1996; Palese et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 93:11354–11358, 1996; each incorporated herein by reference). In this context, rescue of recombinant viruses has been reported for infectious respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), rabies virus (RaV), simian virus 5 (SV5), rinderpest virus, Newcastle disease virus (NDV), vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), measles virus (MeV), mumps virus (MuV) and Sendai virus (SeV) from cDNA-encoded antigenomic RNA in the presence of essential viral proteins (see, e.g., Garcin et al., EMBO J. 14:6087–6094, 1995; Lawson et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 92:4477–4481, 1995; Radecke et al., EMBO J. 14:5773–5784, 1995; Schnell et al., EMBO J. 13:4195–4203, 1994; Whelan et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 92:8388–8392, 1995; Hoffman et al., J. Virol. 71:4272–4277, 1997; Kato et al., Genes to Cells 1:569–579, 1996, Roberts et al., Virology 247:1–6, 1998; Baron et al., J. Virol. 71:1265–1271, 1997; International Publication No. WO 97/06270; Collins et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 92:11563–11567, 1995; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/892,403, filed Jul. 15, 1997 (corresponding to published International Application No. WO 98/02530 and priority U.S. Provisional Application Nos. 60/047,634, filed May 23, 1997, 60/046,141, filed May 9, 1997, and 60/021,773, filed Jul. 15, 1996); U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/291,894, filed on Apr. 13, 1999; U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/129,006, filed Apr. 13, 1999; U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/143,097, filed by Bucholz et al. on Jul. 9, 1999; Juhasz et al., J. Virol. 71:5814–5819, 1997; He et al. Virology 237:249–260, 1997; Peters et al. J. Virol. 73:5001–5009, 1999; Whitehead et al., Virology 247:232–239, 1998a; Whitehead et al., J. Virol. 72:4467–4471, 1998b; Jin et al. Virology 251:206–214, 1998; Bucholz et al. J. Virol. 73:251–259, 1999; Whitehead et al., J. Virol. 73:3438–3442, 1999, and Clarke et al., J. Virol. 74:4831–4838, 2000; each incorporated herein by reference in its entirety for all purposes).
In more specific regard to the instant invention, a method for producing HPIV with a wt phenotype from cDNA was recently developed for recovery of infectious, recombinant HPIV3 JS strain (see, e.g., Durbin et al., Virology 235:323–332, 1997a; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/083,793, filed May 22, 1998; U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/047,575, filed May 23, 1997 (corresponding to International Publication No. WO 98/53078), and U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/059,385, filed Sep. 19, 1997, each incorporated herein by reference). In addition, these disclosures allow for genetic manipulation of viral cDNA clones to determine the genetic basis of phenotypic changes in biological mutants, e.g., which mutations in the HPIV3 cp45 virus specify its ts, ca and att phenotypes, and which gene(s) or genome segment(s) of BPIV3 specify its attenuation phenotype. Additionally, these and related disclosures render it feasible to construct novel PIV vaccine candidates having a wide range of different mutations and to evaluate their level of attenuation, immunogenicity and phenotypic stability (see also, U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/143,134, filed by Bailly et al. on Jul. 9, 1999; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/350,821, filed by Durbin et al. on Jul. 9, 1999; each incorporated herein by reference).
Thus, infectious wild type recombinant PIV3 (r)PIV3, as well as a number of ts derivatives, have now been recovered from cDNA, and reverse genetics systems have been used to generate infectious virus bearing defined attenuating mutations and to study the genetic basis of attenuation of existing vaccine viruses. For example, the three amino acid substitutions found in the L gene of cp45, singularly or in combination, have been found to specify the ts and attenuation phenotypes. Additional ts and attenuating mutations are present in other regions of the PIV3 cp45. In addition a chimeric PIV1 vaccine candidate has been generated using the PIV3 cDNA rescue system by replacing the PIV3 HN and F open reading frames (ORFs) with those of PIV1 in a PIV3 full-length cDNA that contains the three attenuating mutations in L. The recombinant chimeric virus derived from this cDNA is designated rPIV3-1.cp45L (Skiadopoulos et al., J. Virol. 72:1762–1768, 1998; Tao et al., J. Virol. 72:2955–2961, 1998; Tao et al., Vaccine 17:1100–1108, 1999, incorporated herein by reference). rPIV3-1.cp45L was attenuated in hamsters and induced a high level of resistance to challenge with PIV1. A recombinant chimeric virus, designated rPIV3-1.cp45, has been produced that contains 12 of the 15 cp45 mutations, i.e., excluding the mutations that occur in HN and F, and is highly attenuated in the upper and lower respiratory tract of hamsters (Skiadopoulos et al., Vaccine 18:503–510, 1999a).
BPIV3, which is antigenically-related to HPIV3, offers an alternative approach to the development of a live attenuated virus vaccine for HPIV1, HPIV2, and HPIV3. The first vaccine used in humans, live vaccinia virus believed to be of bovine origin, was developed by Jenner almost 200 years ago for the control of smallpox. During the ensuing two centuries, vaccinia virus was successful in controlling this disease and played an essential role in the final eradication of smallpox. In this “Jennerian” approach to vaccine development, an antigenically-related animal virus is used as a vaccine for humans. Animal viruses that are well adapted to their natural host often do not replicate efficiently in humans and hence are attenuated. At present, there is a lack of a thorough understanding regarding the genetic basis for this form of host range restriction. Evolution of a virus in its mammalian or avian host results in significant divergence of nucleotide (nt) and amino acid sequences from that of the corresponding sequences in the related human virus. This divergent sequence, consisting of a large number of sequence differences, specifies the host range attenuation phenotype. Having an attenuation phenotype which is based on numerous sequence differences is a desirable property in a vaccine virus since it should contribute to the stability of the attenuation phenotype of the animal virus following its replication in humans.
The recently licensed quadrivalent rotavirus is an example of the Jennerian approach to vaccine development in which a nonhuman rotavirus strain, the rhesus rotavirus (RRV), was found to be attenuated in humans and protective against human serotype 3 to which it is antigenically highly related (Kapikian et al., Adv. Exp. Med. Biol. 327:59–69, 1992). Since there was a need for a multivalent vaccine that would induce resistance to each of the four major human rotavirus serotypes, the Jennerian approach was modified by constructing three reassortant viruses using conventional genetic techniques of gene reassortment in tissue culture. Each single gene reassortant virus contained 10 RRV genes plus a single human rotavirus gene that coded for the major neutralization antigen (VP7) of serotype 1, 2, or 4. The intent was to prepare single gene substitution RRV reassortants with the attenuation characteristics of this simian virus and the neutralization specificity of human rotavirus serotype 1, 2, or 4. The quadrivalent vaccine based on the host range restriction of the simian RRV in humans provided a high level of efficacy against human rotavirus infection in infants and young children (Perez-Schael et al., N. Engl. J. Med. 337:1181–1187, 1997). However, the vaccine virus retains mild reactogenicity in older seronegative infants lacking maternal antibody, therefore a second generation Jennerian vaccine, based on the UK strain of bovine rotavirus, is being developed to replace the RRV vaccine (Clements-Mann et al., Vaccine 17:2715–2725, 1999).
The Jennerian approach also is being explored to develop vaccines for parainfluenza type 1 virus and for hepatitis A virus which are attenuated and immunogenic in non-human primates (Emerson et al., J. Infect. Dis. 173:592–597, 1996; Hurwitz et al., Vaccine 15:533–540, 1997). The Jennerian approach was used for the development of a live attenuated vaccine for influenza A virus but it failed to produce a consistently attenuated vaccine for use in humans (Steinhoff et al., J. Infect. Dis. 163:1023–1028, 1991). As another example, reassortant viruses that contain two gene segments encoding the hemagglutinin and neuraminidase surface glycoproteins from a human influenza A virus and the six remaining gene segments from an avian influenza A virus were attenuated in humans (Clements et al., J. Clin. Microbiol. 27:219–222, 1989; Murphy et al., J. Infect. Dis. 152:225–229, 1985; and Snyder et al., J. Clin. Microbiol. 23:852–857, 1986). This indicated that one or more of the six gene segments of the avian virus attenuated the avian-human influenza A viruses for humans. The genetic determinants of this attenuation were mapped using reassortant viruses possessing a single gene segment from an attenuating avian influenza A virus and the remaining genes from a human strain. It was shown that the nonstructural (NS), polymerase (PB1, PB2) and M genes contributed to the attenuation phenotype of avian influenza A viruses in humans (Clements et al., J. Clin. Microbiol. 30:655–662, 1992).
In another study, the severe host range restriction of bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) for replication in chimpanzees was only slightly alleviated by replacement of the BRSV F and G glycoproteins with their HRSV counterparts. This indicated that F and G are involved in this host range restriction, but that one or more additional bovine RSV genes are also involved (Buchholz et al., J. Virol. 74:1187–1199, 2000). This illustrates that more than one gene can contribute in unpredictable ways to the host range restriction phenotype of a mammalian or avian virus in primates.
The instant invention provides a new basis for attenuating a wild type or mutant parental virus for use as a vaccine against HPIV, in which attenuation is based completely or in part on host range effects, while at least one or more of the major neutralization and protective antigenic determinant(s) of the chimeric virus is homologous to the virus against which the vaccine is directed. The HN and F proteins of BPIV3 are each approximately 80% related by amino acid sequence to their corresponding HPIV3 proteins (Suzu et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 15:2945–2958, 1987, incorporated herein by reference) and 25% related by antigenic analysis (Coelingh et al., J. Virol. 64:3833–3843, 1990; Coelingh et al., J. Virol. 60:90–96, 1986; van Wyke Coelingh et al., J. Infect. Dis. 157:655–662, 1988, each incorporated herein by reference). Previous studies indicated that two strains of BPIV3, the Kansas (Ka) strain and the Shipping Fever (SF) prototype strain, were attenuated for the upper and lower respiratory tract of rhesus monkeys, and one of these, the Ka strain, was attenuated in chimpanzees (van Wyke Coelingh et al., 1988, supra, incorporated herein by reference). Immunization of nonhuman primates with the Ka virus induced antibodies reactive with HPIV3 and induced resistance to the replication of the human virus in the upper and the lower respiratory tract of monkeys (id.) Subsequent evaluation of the Ka strain in humans indicated that the virus was satisfactorily attenuated for seronegative infants, and it retained the attenuation phenotype following replication in fully susceptible infants and children (Karron et al., 1996, supra; and Karron et al., 1995a, supra; each incorporated herein by reference). Its major advantages therefore were that it was satisfactorily attenuated for fully susceptible seronegative infants and children, and its attenuation phenotype was stable following replication in humans.
However, the level of serum hemagglutination-inhibiting antibodies reactive with HPIV3 induced in seronegative vaccinees who received 105.0 tissue culture infectious dose50 (TCID)50 of the Ka strain of BPIV3 was 1:10.5, which was three-fold lower than similar vaccinees who received a live attenuated HPIV3 vaccine (Karron et al., 1995a, supra; and Karron et al., 1995b, supra; each incorporated herein by reference). This lower level of antibodies to the human virus induced by BPIV3 reflected in large part the antigenic divergence between HPIV3 and BPIV3 (Karron et al., 1996, supra; and Karron et al., 1995a, supra; each incorporated herein by reference). Studies to determine the efficacy of the Ka vaccine candidate against HPIV3 in humans have not been performed, but it is likely that this reduced level of antibodies reactive with HPIV3 will be reflected in a reduced level of protective efficacy.
Although it is clear that BPIV3 has host range genes that restrict replication in the respiratory tract of rhesus monkeys, chimpanzees and humans, it remains unknown which of the bovine proteins or noncoding sequences contribute to this host range restriction of replication. It is possible that any of the BPIV3 proteins or noncoding sequences may confer a host range phenotype. It is not possible to determine in advance which genes or genome segments will confer an attenuation phenotype. This can only be accomplished by systematic substitution of BPIV3 coding and non-coding sequences for their HPIV3 counterparts and by evaluation of the recovered HPIV3/BPIV3 chimeric viruses in seronegative rhesus monkeys or humans.
Despite the numerous advances toward development of effective vaccine agents against PIV serotypes 1, 2, and 3, there remains a clear need in the art for additional tools and methods to engineer safe and effective vaccines to alleviate the serious health problems attributable to PIV, particularly illnesses among infants and children due to infection by HPIV. Among the remaining challenges in this context is the need for additional tools to generate suitably attenuated, immunogenic and genetically stable vaccine candidates for use in diverse clinical settings. To facilitate these goals, existing methods for identifying and incorporating attenuating mutations into recombinant vaccine strains must be expanded. Furthermore, it is recognized that methods and compositions for designing vaccines against human PIV can be implemented as well to design novel vaccine candidates for veterinary use. Surprisingly, the present invention fulfills these needs and provides additional advantages as described hereinbelow.